You're right actually, This was as far as i got on my second play through before giving up.
IMO it is one of the more frustrating parts of the game, there are probably occasionally others, but this is right up there. So now you've passed it, you should find things get much better

Originally Posted by JDR13
The funny thing is that I killed him with 1 blow after stunning him with Aard, pure luck I guess. Not before I had to go back to an earlier save and spend some of my talents differently though…

Aardt is the main trick with The Beast. Also, you must focus only on the Beast, - ignore the pups. If you kill the pups, The Beast will respawn them. If you kill the beast, nothing respawns.

Yes, diamond dust on your weapon, and as many potions as you can quickly get in, -start with Swallow, Blizzard and/or Tawny owl if you have time. Do the ritual of power before you enter the cave where Abigail is.

Yup, that's the absolute low point of the game. Terrible design, and I'm very surprised they didn't fix it for the EE.

There's one thing about it that you can figure out that makes it a lot easier, though.

Spoiler

The Beast spawns new barghests every time you kill all three. So, the trick is to kill two of them and then concentrate on the Beast. If you have Abigail with you, shell be able to fend off the remaining barghest fairly well and heal you as you fight the big one. It's still a bastard of a fight, though; clearly the toughest in the game IMO.

Re Signs, yeah, Aard is good, but it's not unbalanced-good. Igni rules against some rather tough critters that are especially vulnerable to fire, and Yrden is great for weakening some otherwise tough opponents. I didn't bother much with Axii, but I'd expect it to be quite useful against humans and such.

Originally Posted by RivianWitch
Yes, diamond dust on your weapon, and as many potions as you can quickly get in, -start with Swallow, Blizzard and/or Tawny owl if you have time. Do the ritual of power before you enter the cave where Abigail is.

I actually tried doing Swallow, Blizzard and Tawny Owl. It's not possible to do all 3 at the same time, at least not at that point in the game. It pushed my toxicity level too high.

I remember using an oil for the blade … spectral something-or-other I think it was called. It did wonders for the amount of damage I could deal out against the beast and essentially won me the match. However, on my first attempt I didn't have any with me so I had to backtrack quite a bit to the point just before the whole beast encounter thread was set into motion.

I was ready to delete the game and throw it out at that point but people kept saying how great The Witcher was so I retraced my steps up until the beast encounter and finally beat it … man, am I glad I rode it out and experienced the rest of this gem.

Actually, I think I'm ready for a replay about now even though I'm not looking forward to the beast encounter

— "Chess in particular had always annoyed him. It was the dumb way the pawns went off and slaughtered their fellow pawns while the kings lounged about doing nothing that always got to him; if only the pawns united, maybe talked the rooks around, the whole board could've been a republic in a dozen moves."- Commander Vimes in Thud! by Terry Pratchett

Based on game knowledge and level at that point I do agree it is a bit over the top. I think the point was to force you to use potions, blade oils and or any combination of buffs you had as well as the strategy of killing only two of it's minions and then work on it. The final training for what you should do in-game with other hard battles.

— Bart and Corwin should just admit that when it gets down to it, I will have the final say.

A nice trick that worked for me is to never attack directly the beast but only the summons and use group fights. And if there's no summon run waiting some spawn. Add some potions use and this does the trick.

That's still a weird design including the horrible sequence management linked to the fight.